{"id":888,"date":"2007-08-30T10:55:28","date_gmt":"2007-08-30T18:55:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artesianmedia.com\/blog\/2007\/08\/30\/does-the-media-even-matter-anymore\/"},"modified":"2007-08-30T10:55:28","modified_gmt":"2007-08-30T18:55:28","slug":"does-the-media-even-matter-anymore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artesianmedia.com\/blog\/does-the-media-even-matter-anymore\/","title":{"rendered":"Does the Media Even Matter Anymore?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Has the proliferation of alternate media and conspiracy theories so eroded the public&#8217;s trust in the media that the tipping point has been reached? <\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s an interesting question &#8211; and, oddly enough, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.opinionjournal.com\/columnists\/dhenninger\/?id=110010537\">it is someone from the Wall Street Journal&#8217;s editorial page that is asking this question.<\/a> &nbsp;Maybe being bought out by Murdoch was a bucket of ice water to the collective faces over there, and they&#8217;ve suddenly discovered that predatory capitalism has consequences&#8230; <\/p>\n<p>Anyway, the writer blathers on with a rather thin recounting of various media canaries going toes-up, and then gets to this: <\/p>\n<p>\n<font face=\"Verdana, Times\" size=\"2\"><\/font><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><font color=\"#ff0000\">But for the media ponderers<br \/>\nthere&#8217;s a more troubling issue than the restoration of trust. It&#8217;s the<br \/>\npossibility that too many people now simply don&#8217;t much care about the<br \/>\nmajor media anymore. Normally the great media combines would overcome<br \/>\nperiods of lassitude by forming up focus groups to tell them what to do<br \/>\nnext. Hah! They want &#8220;Survivor&#8221;! Alas, living as we do now in a world<br \/>\nof seemingly infinite choice, it is possible not to care for a seeming<br \/>\ninfinity of reasons, which is why the established media are having such<br \/>\na hard time knowing what to do. <\/p>\n<p>Mr. Paxman identified one reason<br \/>\nnot to care: &#8220;In the last quarter century we&#8217;ve gone from three<br \/>\nchannels to hundreds.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. The truth is this: the more television<br \/>\nthere is, the less any of it matters.&#8221; Once there was a time when TV<br \/>\nannouncers used to say, &#8220;Stay with us.&#8221; Now no one stays. They go<br \/>\nsurfing, endlessly seeking a five-minute wave of TV that will take them<br \/>\njust a little higher than the five minutes they just watched. <\/p>\n<p>More difficult are the<br \/>\nI-don&#8217;t-care revolutionaries, who argue that digitization has reversed<br \/>\nthe media world&#8217;s authority and power. The old aristocracy of<br \/>\nprogrammers and editors has been overthrown by average people who now<br \/>\nblog new political priorities, download media and form themselves into<br \/>\nclickable communities. The Snowman wins. Get over it.<\/font><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><font face=\"Verdana, Times\" size=\"2\"> <\/font><\/p>\n<p>You can almost here the writer&#8217;s buttocks shifting uncomfortably in his Aeron chair as he ponders a future where his lofty perch is suddenly not quite so lofty anymore. <\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p class=\"poweredbyperformancing\">Powered by <a href=\"http:\/\/scribefire.com\/\">ScribeFire<\/a>.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Has the proliferation of alternate media and conspiracy theories so eroded the public&#8217;s trust in the media that the tipping point has been reached? That&#8217;s an interesting question &#8211; and, oddly enough, it is someone from the Wall Street Journal&#8217;s editorial page that is asking this question. &nbsp;Maybe being bought out by Murdoch was a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[1],"class_list":["post-888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artesianmedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artesianmedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artesianmedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artesianmedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artesianmedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=888"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artesianmedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/888\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artesianmedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artesianmedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artesianmedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}